While judging from the short segmentlinked above,the video is a mangled cry ofdespair, disgust, and angerthat's not worth any speculation at all.

But I think that all sides will agreethat the interpretion of the pieceis far less importantthan the principleof whether anyonebesides the curatorcan have anything removed from the wallof a national art museum.

As Philip Kennicott, cultural criticof the Washington post,proclaims:

"The modern museum has evolved from a straightforward display of power - this is Culture, so genuflect, ye masses - to a paradoxical place where old forms of power and discipline are harnessed to create new kinds of debate and criticism.

Museums are still supported by the wealthy and privileged, who generally acquiesce to exhibitions that aim at inclusion and diversity. The government, if it gives money, indicates its support for cultural projects while (ideally) declining to dictate message or terms to the institution. Scholarship and science still reign (or they should) but are filtered through new technologies and directed at increasingly diverse subject matter.......

The removal of the video was a tiny gesture of exclusion meant to thwart the powerful march of democratic openness that museums in general, and this exhibition in particular, exemplify."

But how do "scholarship and science"determinewhat gets shownin an art museum?

How much of that determinationis based upon facts and argumentupon whichevery reasonable person can agree?

And how much is based uponthe trendsthat come and gowithin the academic Humanities?

As a civil engineer,G. Wayne Cloughis something of an outsiderto that branch of academia,so it's not surprisingthat he had no interestin defending either the pieceorthe academic authoritythat validated it.

And though politics(here and everywhere,liberal and conservative)plays to ignorance and passionate folly,it remains the only channelfor outsiders to participatein the cultural institutionsthat are supposed to serve them.

Beauford Delaneyportrait of James Baldwin, 1963

And I thinka national portrait gallerycould better serveour nation.

In this exhibit,for example,a third of all the paintingsshown onlinecould not even be called portraits(unless everything could)

Thomas Eakins

Charles Demuth

George Bellows

for example,the threewonderful paintingsshown above.

And judging fromthe listof exhibitsgoing back to 1996,the National Portrait Galleryhas never had an exhibit that focuseson portraits done by peoplewho specialize in portraits on demand,in either paintingor sculpture.

I've had a great time reading upabout the artists and their subjects.(and I only wish that the museumwould have made all 140 pieces in the exhibitionavailable to be seen onlinein nice, large digital imageslike the ones shown above)

But why couldn't they stick to portraits,instead of all the other stuffsomeone considered relevant?

(and it's hardly been censored,since anyone on the planetcan see it on You-Tubein a versionthat is arguablyno worse visually,and actually much longerthan the brief segmentthat was once shownat the gallery.)

So, to turn the phrase of Philip Kennicott:

The removal of the video was a tiny gesture of exclusion meant to challenge the hegemonyof the academic humanitiesover national cultural institutions.

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About Me

I live life dangerously by ignoring the advice of Chuang Tzu: "Your life has a limit but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in danger". Badly spoiled by my wife, I spend mornings in sculpture studio, afternoons in record shop, evenings on the internet, weekends at the Palette and Chisel Academy and Art Institute of Chicago, and, the time spent in between, reading world literature. Am currently focused on the Middle East and South Asia.